West-WRF is an ongoing effort at CW3E to develop a regional weather prediction system tailored to western U.S. weather and hydrological extremes, including heavy rainfall and extended dry periods. The model is based upon the open-source WRF-ARW, version 3.9.1.1, under version control at NCAR: http://wrf-model.org.

Near real-time forecasts are generated using NOAA’s deterministic 0.25oGFS forecast as initial and boundary conditions. Forecasts will be updated once daily based upon 12 UTC duty cycles during the wet season: December through March. Forecasts with lead times up to 192 hours at three hourly resolution on two domains with 9 km and 3 km horizontal resolutions are available for the products below.

During the rest of the year, CW3E scientists, with the help of collaborators, are using West-WRF as a platform to conduct research into physical process studies, probabilistic forecasting techniques, and the sources of forecast error using data assimilation and forecast verification. If you have encountered this page during the time of year when we are primarily focused on research activities, the images displayed show an interesting forecast from the previous wet season.

Model domain configuration, physics, I/O, and tailored diagnostics have been developed at CW3E by Dr. Andrew Martin, Dr. John Helly, and Dr. F. Martin Ralph. Inquiries should be directed to these parties. Forecast products displayed here are intended for educational purposes only, and should not be used to inform decisions that carry risk to property or health.

F. Martin Ralph, PhD., Director

Center For Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E)Scripps Institution of OceanographyUniversity of California, San Diego9500 Gilman DriveLa Jolla, CA 92093Directions